thinking back to @kph3k's question about why "obesity is genetic" is seen as a good thing and "intelligence is genetic" is a bad thing – is this just another manifestation of dualism?
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it seems like, broadly speaking, people object most to mental traits being partly genetically determined. this would make sense if there's a dualist intuition at work: mental traits are "you", and you don't want restrictions on who you are. physical traits are "your body"
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if you are not your body, then having those factors be outside your control is less threatening to your identity
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Replying to @browserdotsys
That’s leaving out an important element- the social ways we categorize things about the body and mind. Both “intelligence” and “obesity” are bodily, but they are not /only/ bodily. We miss the mixed constitution of traits like those too often.
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Replying to @opobjectives @browserdotsys
Cognitive performance is probably as bodily as athletic performance. And while nobody denies the importance of exercise for top athletes as well as genetics, many think that mental ability is not the result of exercise and talent, and instead of opportunity and encouragement.
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Replying to @Plinz @browserdotsys
Agreed that people who consider atheletic performance to have different roots than cognitive performance are doing it wrong. My point was largely that we should think about the whole bunch of factors- exercise, talent, community environment, training, etc. together.
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On top of that, it would probably be helpful to recognize that our ideas of what counts as athletic or cognitive performance (for example) are, themselves, social.
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That could open up a range of good questions, like: how can we think of sport or play as intellectual activities? Or, How do activities that might traditionally be thought of as intellectual rely on similar practices to things like sport?
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Replying to @opobjectives @browserdotsys
I suspect that you get confused by being unable to see these categories as purely descriptive instead of normative
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Replying to @Plinz @browserdotsys
There’s plenty of room for questioning normativity in what I’m saying. That’s a strength of thinking about categories as social practices. That approach can help pull apart how and why categories like “obese” or “intellectually gifted” are normatively loaded.
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You make it sound as if it is mysterious or even interesting that people will start to dispute the meaning of properties that translate into their economic, social and romantic success.
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Replying to @Plinz @browserdotsys
People do that all the time. But I took the original point to be that it’s a little mysterious that bodily explanations are only acceptable when discussing some things and not others. I’m saying that there’s a lot of possible explanations for that.
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Some widespread version of dualism, as Bowser said, could be an explanation. Normativity around things like obesity and intelligence could be another. Both rely on how people respond to those concepts/categories in everyday ways.
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